Description
Better Internal Link Search improves the default internal link searching feature in a number of ways, making it faster and easier to find the content you want to link up.
The most basic feature limits results to posts and pages that contain your search term in the title, rather than returning every post that contains the term in the title or content field — this greatly reduces the number of results on sites with a lot of content and should improve accuracy.
Beyond that simple change are more powerful features that can be customized for your particular site, including creating shortcuts for often-used links and even searching external sites without leaving WordPress!
Features
- Search by post or page title when adding links to the editor or adding pages to a nav menu.
- Includes terms from any taxonomy in the search results so you can easily link to term archives.
- Scheduled posts are included in search results.
- Text highlighted in the editor when opening the internal link popup is searched for automatically.
- Adds a shortcut for quickly linking to the homepage. Just type ‘home’.
- Provides the ability to create custom shortcuts with a little code.
- Powerful modifiers included for searching additional data sources to make linking fast and easy (Wikipedia, GitHub, iTunes, Spotify, Codex).
- Extendable so developers can add their own sources.
Typeahead Search
Instantly see search results for pages, posts, media items or other custom post types on their Manage Posts screens. As soon as you start typing in the search field, the table instantly updates with results for whichever post type you’re viewing. Pressing enter or clicking the search button will continue to return posts using the default search algorithm (post titles and content).
Additional Resources
Screencast
Eric Amundson over at Ivy Cat recorded this great overview of the plugin’s features:
Screenshots
Standard search results. The “Contact Us” page is nowhere in sight and in fact, is about the 95th page in this particular list. 
Results with Better Internal Link Search activated. The text selected in the editor was automatically searched and matches are based on title only. 
Shortcuts demonstration. 
Search modifiers help list. 
A search modifier in action.
Installation
Installing Better Internal Link Search is just like installing most other plugins. Check out the codex if you have any questions.
FAQ
- Installation Instructions
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Installing Better Internal Link Search is just like installing most other plugins. Check out the codex if you have any questions.
- How do I know which shortcuts are available?
-
Type
shortcutsin the search field and all of your registered shortcuts will be listed. Additional shortcuts can be added with a little bit of code in your functions.php, so if you find yourself linking to a particular URL over and over again, add a shortcut and save yourself some time! - How do I know which modifiers are available?
-
Type
-or-helpin the search field and the search modifiers will be listed with their syntax and a brief description about what they do.Although they can be a bit more complex to use, they have the potential to save a lot of time when repeatedly linking to external websites. For example, searching for the term ‘interrobang’ on Wikipedia would look like this:
-wikipedia interrobangA few simple modifiers have been included by default and should serve as examples for developers that want to create their own or change the syntax. Basic support is built in for Wikipedia, iTunes, Spotify, the WordPress plugin directory, the Codex, GitHub repositories, listing a user’s GitHub Gists, and linking to author archive URLs.
- There is a slight delay when opening the internal link popup. Help?
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If your site has a lot of content, the automatic search feature may cause it to lag as search results are retrieved. You can disable this feature by unchecking the “Automatic Search” field on the Writing settings screen in your dashboard (go to Settings → Writing).
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“Better Internal Link Search” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
“Better Internal Link Search” has been translated into 3 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate “Better Internal Link Search” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.3.0 – December 1, 2016
- Fixed the functionality that limited search results to items with the search term in their title after a change in core disabled this feature.
- Fixed the spinners on screens with post list tables.
- Fixed the Spotify search modifier.
- Updated URLs to https where possible.
- Transferred to Cedaro.
1.2.12
- Prevent errors with other plugins using AJAX when internal-link-manager.js is enqueued.
- Removed German translation files in favor of www.ads-software.com language packs.
1.2.11
- Loaded scripts and styles anywhere the editor is loaded to make the improved internal searching available. Props joostdevalk.
- Updated German translation. Props wpdocde.
- Fixed a typo in the help text. Props christophherr.
1.2.10
1.2.9
- Updated the search field to selector to account for an id change in WordPress 4.2.
- Used isset to check for a property an variable to prevent notices when it’s not an object.
1.2.8
- Added German translation.
- Updated to use wpdb::esc_like() instead of deprecated like_escape() method.
1.2.7
- Added a setting to disable inclusion of term archives in default search results.
- Fixed a bug that caused the ‘pre_better_internal_link_search_results’ filter to have no effect on results.
1.2.6
- Fixed the automatic searching feature that quit working in WordPress 3.9. Works in 4.0+.
- Internationalized additional strings.
- Minor code clean-up.
1.2.5
- Cleared floats for descriptions in results to prevent overlap.
- Quit suppressing filters for instant search so other plugins can filter the query.
- Initialized the instant search query using wp_edit_posts_query() instead of WP_Query().
- Fixed strict PHP notices.
1.2.4
- Fixed a syntax error when calling array_merge().
1.2.3
- Added a check to prevent errors with plugins that don’t use the WordPress AJAX API.
- Updated JavaScript to pass JSHint tests.
- Updated text domain and improved loading of language files.
1.2.2
- Changed keypress event for typeahead search results to work in Chrome.
- Added an action to the typeahead AJAX callback so custom P2P columns display.
- Added support for WordPress SEO custom columns.
1.2.1
- Fixed a bug with instant search in WordPress 3.5.
- Better compatibility with plugins that create custom columns, specifically Codepress Admin Columns.
- Cleaned up code formatting and whitespace.
1.2
- Added instant search on Manage Posts/Media screens.
- Reorganized the plugin structure.
- Fixed a bug with paging for local search modifiers.
- Added “-media” search modifier by Erik Larsson (Twitter: @e_larsson).
1.1.2
- Fixed a bug that didn’t allow builtin search modifiers to be disabled.
- Added an option on the Writing Settings screen to disable the automatic searching of text selected in the editor when the Internal Linking popup is activated, so that it doesn’t cause a delay on sites with a lot of content.
- Added an upgrade routine to setup default settings and store the current version number for future upgrades.
- Added uninstall.php to remove options if the plugin is uninstalled.
1.1.1
- Fixed bug preventing link popup from opening in HTML mode.
1.1
- Include term archives in results.
- Include scheduled posts in results.
- Debounced the search field.
- Added multiple hooks for modifying results.
- Added shortcuts feature.
- Added search modifiers.
1.0
- Initial release.